Monday, March 14, 2011

190 Diners, Drive-ins and Dives ... and counting ....

Read a great article on Sunday by Dave Bakke of The State Journal-Register, based from Springfield, IL, about a local couple who has been to 190 of Guy Fieri's diners, drive-ins and dives.

Ben and Barb Stillwagon started in September of 2008 with a trip out to the iconic Hillbilly Hot Dogs in Lesage, WV. Since then, they've visited Darwell’s in Long Beach, MS, Panini Pete’s in Fairhope, AL and Kelly O’s Diner in Somerville, MA, just to name a few of the one hundred ninety restaurants they've visited from the show. One wonders where the 200th will be!

“That’s my goal,” says Ben, “to meet Guy Fieri or, if not, to get a call from him.”

Click here for the full article. And to view Ben Stillwagon's Top 20 'Diners, Drive-ins and Dives,' click here.

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives is a Food Network #1 show. According to the website TVbytheNumbers.com, its top airing for the last week of February 2011 drew 1.6 million viewers. And of the Top 10 viewed airings of any show on FoodTV that week, "Triple D" boasts 6 spots of those top 10.

The Stillwagons aren't alone in going where Guy went. Roger and Jane Holm had their 100th DDD visit documented in the Family Joints episode of the show.

And Phil S.'s last count of diners and drive-ins is up to 54. He hit his 50th at Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis, MN. Phil wrote in,
While we were bowling (in the restaurant) the head chef came over and handed me their signed Guy picture that every restaurant gets and most display. He said it had been sitting in their basement and they didn't have anywhere to display it, and I would enjoy it much more!! ... I sent Guy a huge map of the U.S. which I use to track our DDD progress as well as a note, a few pictures and a list of our DDDs for him to keep. I got it back signed and personalized within a few weeks. He even personalized the tube that it was in.

Phil also found the cool replica DDD sign on eBay (pictured above) and snatched it up!

Rob McCleland, who we've nick-named Dr. DDD, recently had behind-the-scenes access to a "Triple D" shoot. He celebrated his 50th at Hodad's in San Diego and his 100th at Poke Stop in Hawaii. To date, he's been to 135 of the restaurants that Guy Fieri has featured on the show, returning to favorites more than visiting new ones lately.



Related Posts:
Dr. M’s TOP TEN reasons that visiting Triple Ds is a great hobby!
Fans travel miles to Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
Fans visit over 100 Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

-> more in Diners, Drive-ins and Dives <-

1 comment:

Jeremiah Red Johnson said...

Guy does the work of thousands. He's got the number one show, 100's of food lovers learning about new place to check out and helping DDD owners to reach thousands that would have never known about them. Job Well Done!